


the stuff that dreams are made of

by devviepuu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Wolf Among Us, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Detective Noir, F/M, Only Not Like They Thought It Would, it's kind of like an alternate theory of the curse, the curse happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-10-01 14:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17245808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devviepuu/pseuds/devviepuu
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective.  She had blonde hair, green eyes, no family, and she was good at finding people; in fact, she proclaimed this on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”Only lately, she's been thinking that maybe it should say "Emma Swan:  Loner, Loser, Complicated wreck."Her partner's been killed on a case after she made a deal with her landlord to find what had been taken from him.  But when she tracks a possible perp to a bar on the outskirts of town, Emma will find out exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes.--on hold pending the CS Rewrite-a-Thon





	1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful detective.

She had long, blonde hair that curled just so at the edges of a face with skin as fair as snow, save for the hint of a healthy blush across the apples of her cheeks.  Her eyes glinted green, like emeralds in the sunlight, and the fall of her lashes was thick and dark. Emma Swan looked like nothing so much as a fairy-tale princess, but if Emma Swan knew one thing about her life it was this:  nothing about it was a fairy tale.

Her hair, for starters, was the product of nearly an hour’s work in front of a mirror, most days, curling it and drying it and styling it just so.  Twenty minutes in front of a mirror perfecting the “no makeup” aesthetic, with the thickest mascara wand she could find and the darkest shade of black available--lash primer, too, if she was feeling particularly ambitious.  Contact lenses instead of glasses, though her eyes were naturally green which meant at least one of her parents had probably had green eyes, too, not that Emma knew for sure either way. But she was beautiful, which was a thing Emma did know for sure, capping it all off with a carefully curated collection of leather jackets and knee-high boots, black trousers and jeans and pencil skirts, for a look that said very clearly _do not fuck with me_.

Emma was her actual given name, or at least it was according to the one tangible thing--besides her eyes--that she knew she had gotten from her parents.  The letters had been lovingly hand-stitched into the knitted blanket she had been found in near a diner by the side of the road in Bumblefuck, Maine sometime in the first few hours after she had been born.  Her last name, Swan, had been attached by the one family who had considered adopting her and had stuck on every piece of official paperwork that followed her from foster home to foster home after they had traded her in to have their own kid as she made her way across the country and through the system.  Sometime around her fourteenth or fifteenth birthday, soon after the first time she had run away, Emma had decided she might as well keep it as not. Something about believing in herself and saying ‘fuck you’ to fate because no one else was going to do it for her.

No fairy godmothers in this world.

Emma Swan also had a talent--though, in the way of fairy tales, she had been unable to unleash it on the one thing that mattered most:  she was good at finding people, and she proclaimed this fact on her office door. “Swan and Humbert,” it said. “Private investigations, missing persons, and bail bonds.”

So, Emma Swan was twenty-eight, as of today; beautiful, but prickly, which was the nice way people said it.  “Unfeeling bitch” was what Graham Humbert called her, and most days he meant it as a compliment but last night he had meant it to wound her.  “Heartless bastard” was what she’d called him in return after he’d crossed a line she’d never intended them to cross. Their partnership was supposed to be easy and constant, one of the few reliable things she’d found in this life she’d scraped together for herself.  It’s not that she hadn’t felt a flash of _something_ when he’d kissed her in the office late the night before, it’s just that it was easier to feel nothing when what you were feeling, most of the time, just plain sucked.

As Emma pushed the office door open, she was wondering if she should change it to “Emma Swan:  Loner, Loser, Complicated Wreck” before deciding that would probably scare potential clients away.

And for now, at least, she still had a partner.  If she hadn’t scared him away, too.

“He’s not here, is he?”  Emma sighed as she walked into the outer office.

“Mmm?” Ruby murmured, not looking up from her makeup mirror as she fluffed her waist-length, red-streaked black curls until she was satisfied with their volume.  “Graham just phoned, actually, said he was gonna be late.” She pouted into the mirror, testing the longevity of her red lipstick, and finally looked up. “Whoa, Em,” she said, gesturing at the cropped red leather jacket Emma had selected for the day’s ensemble.  “What’s with the battle armor? You can’t be like this today, you have a client waiting.” Ruby snapped the mirror shut and gestured at the inner office door with her chin.

“Sleazy divorce case?” Emma asked, almost hopefully.

“Ah,” Ruby nodded, like that explained something.  “You’re in that mood--explains the outfit. Guess we’re not solving the mystery of True Love today, then?”

“No mystery,” Emma said.  “Sooner or later, the people you love let you down.  Life lesson from me to you, Ruby. At least then, they end up here--and we need the eighty bucks an hour.”

“You make it sound so tawdry,” Ruby complained.

“These are our people, Red.”

“What did Graham do, Emma?”  Ruby asked, almost in a whisper.  “Do I need to, like, rip his throat out or something?”

Emma just gave her a look.

“Okay,” Ruby sighed, before continuing in a normal voice, “but lower your shields a bit and, you know, smile--but not the kind where you show your teeth because you don’t want to scare them off.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me, Emma.  We need this client.”

“Right,” Emma said, pushing the corners of her mouth upward with her middle fingers and making sure to bare as many teeth as she possibly could.  “All the better to eat you with, my dear.”

Ruby gave her a wink and an air kiss.  “Any time, babe, you know that.”

Emma laughed, breaking into a real smile.  “I’ll leave that to Victor, I think.”

“It’s cute,” Ruby sighed, “that you think he’d care, except to come and watch--or maybe help,” and smacked her lips again when Emma rolled her eyes and turned toward the door marked ‘Private.’  She ran a hand over her hair to smooth it, squared her shoulders, and straightened her jacket.

“Shoulders back, chin up, tits out, Em,” Ruby muttered.  “It’s worth way more than a sleazy divorce case, I can smell it.”

Emma braced herself, opening the door and shutting it behind her.

Her visitor stood in the center of the room, facing the window and leaning on an ornate walking stick.  He turned at the sound of the doorknob and smiled, a sickly, fake thing that flashed just a hint of a gold tooth.  “Ah,” he said. “Miss Swan. It’s nice to see you again. I’m Mr. Gold--”

“I remember,” Emma said, “sir.”   _Sir_ , because if what her landlord charged for this place was any indication, to say nothing of what his made-to-measure three-piece suit might have cost, Ruby was right:  they needed this case.

“I have a proposition for you, Miss Swan,” he said.  “I need your help.”

 

\--

 

Emma sank slowly into her swivel chair, turning to face her visitor and smiling politely--the tight, thin kind that showed no teeth.  He described his case as she took him in: his charcoal grey suit with a hint of a sheen on the fabric, the blood red dress shirt underneath, the black tie streaked with gold and just a hint of purple with a matching pocket square at his breast. Mr. Gold’s walking stick had turned out to be quite genuine, as the man had hobbled slightly when crossing the room to his chair; his hair was long for a man of his apparent dignity, nearly brushing the tips of his shoulders, with strands hanging about his face and nearly in his eyes.  His eyes were clearly following hers as she made her mental evaluation of him, and the effect he gave was almost that of a reptile. His voice was low, his words chosen with deliberation and spoken with a smoothed-over accent. Scottish, perhaps--but every few words there was a syllable with a cadence so foreign Emma couldn’t even begin to place it.

“Here’s the thing, Mr. Gold,” Emma said, keeping the smile intact and speaking softly.  “A missing object, stolen from your shop--it sounds like the kind of job the police should handle.  Though I understand why a man of your means might choose discretion above all else, I also know that a man of your means would typically have no cause to approach someone like me directly--which tells me what whatever has gone missing is something of such value that you can’t even take the chance that anyone knows it’s been stolen.”

His gold tooth glinted again as he parted his lips and nodded his head, almost as if in appreciation.  Emma took it as confirmation--not that she needed it. Her skills at reading people had gotten to the point where if she was concentrated and detached, she could tell a lie better than a polygraph.  

“What’s been taken from me, Miss Swan,” he said, “has been in my possession for longer than you’ve been alive.”  

Emma nodded.  What he said was not a lie.

“Let’s just say,” he said, “that it’s a precious object and leave it at that.  I assure you, however, that it poses no danger to anyone as long as I get it back as quickly and quietly as possible and that it remains my secret.  In fact, I have a rather strong suspicion as to who might have taken it.  Do we have an understanding?”

Emma nodded again.  “Deal,” she said.

“Grand,” Gold said, licking his lips.

“What’s going on in here?”said a voice from the doorway, lilting and accented and familiar.

“Graham,” Emma said, hoping her voice didn’t sound frustrated. “Mr. Gold would like us to take a case on his behalf.  Mr. Gold,” Emma said, turning her attention back to their new client, “this is my partner, Graham Humbert.”

As Graham stepped forward and offered a hand, there was a look on his face Emma had never seen before.  His eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept properly, and his gaze focused on Gold as if he was the only thing in the room.

Emma was sure she imagined the flicker of recognition she saw pass between the two men.  Obviously Graham had dealt with their landlord before.

“Indeed,” Gold said, something like amusement sparking in his eyes.  “I’m looking for someone. This man and I have a long history, and he has the unfortunate habit of taking what is mine.”  

 

\--

 

There were flowers on the table when Emma got home--she grabbed them and dumped them straight into the trash.

“Oh!” her roommate, Mary Margaret, walked in.

It all came down to the number seven, which was the number of addresses she’d had in the past decade.  Graham had hired her, and she’d stayed, in spite of the lack of dental or any other benefits. Mary Margaret hadn’t been looking for a roommate, but they’d met each other and there was the offer of the spare room that wasn’t even properly a room, more like a lofted open space just big enough for a bed and a small wardrobe, before either of them was quite sure what had happened.  Something had clicked, and she’d unpacked the three cardboard boxes that contained all of her possessions and tucked the one small cigar box that held her life, such as it was, away in a corner of the office; before she knew it she’d had a roommate and a job and friends and she hated Graham for putting all of that at risk for something that would never work out.

Because if Emma were the type who allowed herself to believe in such things, she’d have said that finding Mary Margaret - and Ruby, and Graham and her job and her life here - had been like coming home; as if she had always been meant to be there.

“Can you believe this shit?” Emma gestured to the flowers.  “Graham thinks that’s gonna work on me?”

“Yeah, no, those are mine,” Mary Margaret said, then corrected herself.  “Were mine.”

“From the _married guy_?  Seriously?”

“I know,” Mary Margaret said.  “It’s a disaster--wait, how did you know?”

“You’re an elementary school teacher,” Emma said flatly.  “I’m a private investigator. And trust me, married guys are never worth it, no matter how nice the flowers are.  If you need an itch scratched, stick to one-nighters with no attachments, like I do.”

“Yeah, but that’s because you’re--”

“Because I’m what?” Emma’s eyes flashed green in challenge.   _Unfeeling bitch_ , he’d called her, then walked in on her meeting looking like shit but otherwise as if nothing had happened. Graham was a kind, good-natured guy, and most days Emma felt lucky to have him in her life.  It’s easy, between them.

“Never mind,” Mary Margaret sighed.

“No,” Emma said. “Tell me.  What do I do?”

“You’re just,” Mary Margaret said, gesturing expansively, “protecting yourself.  With that wall you put up.”

“Just because I don’t get emotional over men--”

“You don’t?” Mary Margaret was not the type of person who snorted derisively, which Emma was grateful for more at that moment than she might ever have been. “The floral abuse tells a different story.”

“Come on,” Emma said.  

“I’m just saying,” her roommate continued, “that wall of yours may keep out pain, but it will also keep out love.”  Mary Margaret was all about “mawwaige” and “Twoo Wuv” and refused to give up hope that Emma would find both of those things; Emma was more likely to rant about giving up freedom for an institution that fails as often as it succeeds in pursuit of some bullshit ideal of True Love and fairy tales and happy endings instead of a patriarchal something-or-other.

Mary Margaret’s sordid affair was a horrible ‘Exhibit A’ in the case for True love, at any rate.

And Emma felt like she had already had some version of this conversation today, wondered if Ruby and Mary Margaret had coordinated their attacks.

“It wasn’t a bad kiss,” Emma admitted finally, watching Mary Margaret’s eyebrows shoot up.  “It was nice, I guess. Easy.”

“And?”

“And...I’m neither of those things?” Emma threw her hands in the air.  “It’s not what I want, Mary Margaret.”

“Are you sure?”

There was a knock at the door before she could respond, and Emma went to answer it.  Sheriff Nolan’s hand was poised to knock again as she opened the door, and Emma spared a glance at her roommate and barely resisted rolling her eyes at the _married guy_ her friend had been not-so-secretly seeing.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Emma said knowingly, and was surprised at David’s hand on her shoulder.

“I’m here for you, actually,” he said.

 

\--

 

_ Heartless bastard _ .

Emma would have laughed, except she was crying and trying not to throw up at the same time.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_We’ll run it like a basic skip-trace,_ he’d said, taking Gold’s description of their possible perp right out from under her and determined to run recon on his own, Emma ignoring the fact that he was right when he reminded her that they always ran ops that way, laying groundwork before she went in on a mark.

He was here, and they worked together, and now he wasn’t.  And this--this was why she didn’t let herself get emotional over men.  He--they--just, it would have been easy to let herself fall into him, “nice and easy” as she’d said to Mary Margaret--

Emma was not nice, and she was not easy, and maybe she’d always worried that she would muck things up with Graham and it would end badly, but--God, she hated funerals.

Who were all of these people, anyway?  Emma had always assumed that she knew Graham about as well as anyone but literally the only faces she recognized belonged to their mutual assistant, Ruby; her grandmother; Mary Margaret and the Sheriff but Nolan was there with some blonde woman Emma had never seen before, a ring on her fourth finger marking her as the wife.  An older man with a thick Italian accent, a red-headed man with a Dalmation and an umbrella, a group of shorter, stockier men and a thin auburn-haired woman in a severe habit--Graham knew someone in a religious order?

And then--

 _Tall, slim, dark hair, unshaven, blue eyes_ , Gold had said.   _Quite tan.  Fond of black and leather in his aesthetic choices.  Looks about 35 years old._

Emma and Graham had exchanged looks.  Thirty-five and running off with an older, married woman?

 _He’s older than he appears,_ Gold had said, narrowing his eyes.

And Emma had just let him go.  It was another job, a good job, and they needed the money, and they would have worked it out eventually, Emma knew that, only now they wouldn’t.  The’d found him at a bar, Nolan had said, which must mean that Graham had traced their mark--the beautiful dark-haired man now gracing the funeral with his presence--there.  He--the mark--looked appropriately somber and not at all like he was at the funeral of the man he’d killed but Emma had to wonder.

He didn’t look like the kind of man who’d rip someone’s heart out.

But Graham wasn’t one to hang around alone at a bar for recreational reasons.

 _I’ve got this, Emma_ , he’d said, and it was normal and reassuring.  Doing a job always put her on her focus and brought out everything about her and Graham that worked best.

 _Emma_ , Gold had practically purred, and the way he’d lingered over the syllables, separating them out as though he was tasting each letter, had made Emma’s skin crawl.   _It’s such a lovely name_.

Near the front of the gathering stood a woman of medium height in sensible pumps and a black business suit, simple but exquisitely cut and fitted.  She had dark brown hair that brushed the tops of her shoulders, her face was drawn and pale, her bold and perfectly-applied lipstick at a stark contrast to the occasion surrounding her, though the woman looked quite stricken.

Emma had never seen her before in her life.

Who were all of these people?

Whoever they were, Ruby and her grandmother had most of them shepherded into Mrs. Lucas’ diner before Emma had properly gathered her wits enough to follow them out of the cemetery.  She only knew where to find them from the text that had dinged on her phone as he was trudging toward her car, her boots making a soft thud against the pavement.

The people you love let you down:  Emma had known that simple fact her entire life.  But it was one thing to know that all of the people who were meant to care for her - her parents, Neal - were out there somewhere and it was a completely different thing to have Graham permanently gone from the world.  It almost felt like he had been executed for the simple crime of caring for her in a way that she didn’t reciprocate.

 _Why are you so upset_ , he’d said.

 _I’m not upset_ , she’d said.

 _If that were true,_ he’d said, and she’d hated how reasonable he sounded, _you’d be sitting at the bar having a drink with me and not running away_.

But running away was what Emma had always done best.

 _That was way over the line, Graham_.

 _I need to feel something, Emma_.

Whatever it was he’d been looking to feel, she would never have been able to give it to him--and now he would never have it with anyone.

 _There’s a reason you’re alone_.

It was Sheriff Nolan who pulled her out of her thoughts and into the diner.  The way his hand landed against her shoulder was kind, and Emma had to repress the urge to lean against him.  He was her roommate’s married boyfriend and she didn’t even like him that much half of the time, but the gesture charmed her, made her feel taken care of, and she needed that feeling more than anything.  They stood there together for a moment until Emma nearly started to panic. Was she meant to say something now? Something about not breaking her best friend’s heart?

“Emma,” he said softly.  “I know you can probably only see the worst in me, and I can’t even blame you.”

“I don’t,” she said, and she meant it, especially right then.  Maybe for the first time right then. “I just think that someone I care about is going to get hurt, and I don’t want to see that happen.  That’s all that matters to me.”

“Me too,” David said, and Emma knew it was the truth.

 

\--

 

Days went by and Emma went to the office, working on any case at her fingertips except the one that, she was certain, had led to Graham’s death.  He had left no notes and had cleared his browser history.

Emma had a recovery program designed to undo exactly that thing.  She kept it on a USB drive on her keychain.

She didn’t use it.

She was also ignoring the looks that Ruby kept giving her, in the morning and in the evening and when she left for lunch and when she came back.  No new clients walked in and the files were getting thin--apparently all the world was as disgustingly in love as Mary Margaret, and they just hadn’t gotten caught cheating yet.

Mostly, Emma stared at the door.   _Swan and Humbert_.

She couldn’t possibly be expected to stay here.  Everything here that made up her life had been shattered.  Emma felt perpetually on edge, as if she was just waiting to turn around and see someone else gone.  David _fucking_ Nolan had tried to explain to her the need for grief and he had offered help from his office and she kept dreaming about the beautiful blue-eyed stranger, or suspect, or whoever the fuck he was.

Just, she needed to get out of here.  Surely there was someone in the area getting ready to skip bail--preferably far out of state with a big bounty.  Two birds, one stone, and then the rent got paid instead of leaving Ruby to get evicted. Emma did not need Mr. Gold on her case, too.

“I’m here to see Miss Swan,” Emma heard him say, almost as if she had summoned him.  A minute later and the text popped up on her laptop screen, meaning that Emma had to get up and walk to the door.

“Mr. Gold,” she said pleasantly.  “Please come in.”

He was balancing a box on his arm, which he set down gingerly on the desk that had been Graham’s before shifting his weight back against his cane.  “I’m sorry, we have no update on your case yet,” Emma forced herself to say.

“I’m here to express my condolences,” he said, “and to give you these, if you wanted a keepsake.”  Gold gestured at the box. “He rented an apartment that I own, and the police--”

“I don’t need anything,” Emma said, straining for politeness.

“I should tell you that these things are otherwise headed for the trash bin,” Gold persisted.  “You really should take something.”

“All right,” Emma said softly.  “Thank you, Mr. Gold. I appreciate the thought.”

“And I do hope, Miss Swan,” he said significantly, “that you will have an update on my case.  Soon.” He inclined his head, almost a bow, which was at odds with the command in his voice. He turned back toward the door and almost walked into another visitor.

“Oh,” Mr. Gold said.  “Do excuse me.”

Emma definitely imagined the hint of a giggle underlying his words, but the woman in the door frame had a very visible reaction to her landlord’s peculiar mannerisms.  “You,” she said, her entire body coiled like a snake ready to strike.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Gold said politely.  “Have we met before?”

It was the woman from the cemetery, Emma realized, in another impeccably tailored suit paired with sensible pumps.  “Regina Mills,” she said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at Gold, still apparently convinced that Gold knew who she was.

Emma knew who she was--or at least, she knew of her.  If Gold owned most of the property in this up-and-coming corner of the city, affectionately called ‘Storybrooke’ by the realtors and marketing gurus leaning hard into the old-timey-ness of it, it was Regina Mills that had her fingers in every pie that mattered everywhere else.

And she had known Graham well enough, apparently, to show up at his funeral.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Mills,” Gold said smoothly.  “If you would be so kind as to let me pass, I’ll leave you to get on with Miss Swan.”

Regina stood stock still, obviously disinclined to move.

“Please?” Gold emphasized the request.

Something came over the woman as she complied, with murder in her eyes as she did so, waiting for the door to close behind Gold before she stepped father into the office and took in the scene.  Whatever she saw clearly did not impress her, but she settled herself into a chair and locked her eyes on Emma.

Emma noted that she was unimpressed with what she saw there, as well.  She was decked out in her ‘battle armor’ again today, though her curls were less curly and more limp and her eyeliner had probably slid slightly off her waterline and under her eyelid.  There wasn’t quite enough makeup in her bathroom to color-correct the washed-out pallor of her normally fair skin or the rings under her eyes from the little sleep she’d been getting, either.

“Miss Swan,” Regina Mills said, “I’m here to see what it is you’re doing to address the situation of Graham Humbert’s death.”

“Forgive me, Ms. Mills,” Emma said, “but I’m not sure what it is you expect from em in this instance.  How did you know Graham? What made you come and find me?”

“I’m aware of your relationship with him,” Regina said.

“I didn’t have a relationship with him,” Emma retorted.

“Oh?” Regina’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows rose.  “So nothing ever happened between the two of you? I have eyes everywhere, Miss Swan.”

“What--” _the fuck does that even mean,_ Emma finished silently.  Out loud she said, “Nothing that meant anything.”

“You put him on the path, Miss Swan,” Regina insisted.  “Putting thoughts in his head that were not in his best interest.  He was self-destructing, and now he’s dead.”

Seriously?  Who was this woman?

 _Oh, shit_.

“Ms. Mills, were you and Graham--”  

“He wasn’t thinking straight,” Regina said.  “He said that things between us needed to change.  I don’t know what I did to you, Miss Swan, to deserve this--”  She seemed to catch herself suddenly, her face going cool and impassive.  “And clearly you’re doing absolutely nothing to find out what happened. What is it that Gold has promised you?  What deal has he offered?” Almost to herself, Regina said, “What price were you willing to pay?”

“How did you know Graham?” Emma repeated.

Completely in control of her emotions again, Regina said only, “I don’t see how that is any business of yours, Miss Swan.  But whatever it is you are trying to do, know this: I will see you fail, if it is the last thing I do.”

“I can make it my business,” Emma said before she could stop herself.  She stood up and gestured angrily at the door, her left hand waving emphatically.  “And you will get the hell out of my office.”

Regina stood up and grabbed Emma’s outstretched wrist.  Her skin was cool and her demeanor remained calm while she inspected the tattoo of a five-petaled flower right at Emma’s pulse point, though her skin went pale and her cheeks flushed with emotion.  Emma twisted her arm out of the woman’s grasp and backed away, massaging the skin there.

Her tattoo was private; almost no one had ever noticed it, not that Emma had allowed anyone close enough to see it clearly since she’d decided to get it, a souvenir from a time--and a person--she’d moved on from, a way to remind herself that she was special.  It was meant to be a buttercup, but prison ink was not generally known for its artistry.

Emma walked to the door and yanked it open, relieved to see Ruby back at her desk with a bag from her grandmother’s diner.  “Ruby, can you make sure that Ms. Mills gets a taxi?”

“No need,” Regina snarled, her eyes flashing and her eyebrows shooting upward again as she took in the sight of Ruby and her white paper bag.

“What was that about?” Ruby asked the minute the door closed behind the majestic form of Regina Mills.

“Fuck if I know,” Emma said, “but she pissed me off.”  Emma understood pissed--knew how to work through it and use it as fuel.  “Let’s get that door updated, okay? Swan Investigations, or something.” She pulled her key ring out of her pocket.  “I’m gonna get back to work.”

 

\--

 

Graham’s browser history was full of real estate listings.

In fact, he appeared to have looked up property records and appraisals for most of the neighborhood--all of it owned by Mr. Gold, apparently--and then focused on one property in particular, an historic place down by the waterfront that had been converted into a bar.  Emma clicked through the photos of artfully exposed brick and Edison bulbs until she came upon a picture of the owner: tall, sim, dark hair, unshaven and blue eyes. He was working behind the bar, seemingly unaware of the camera; in fact, she couldn’t find any photos of him head-on once she swapped her search up to look for the guy who owned The Rabbit Hole.

Because that was the other thing Graham’s prepwork revealed--he owned it outright instead of renting it from Gold, making him one of the lucky few, maybe even the only one, to escape the curse of that man’s visits.  According to the paperwork Graham had pulled, the man had owned it for more than twenty years--clearly a typo as the man in the photos appeared exactly as Gold had described him: mid-thirties, no more, no less.

 _He’s older than he looks,_ Emma heard in her mind, and dismissed it, already absorbed by how quickly Graham had found the guy based on a rough description and what must have been a hunch--but there was no one Emma knew who was better than Graham at finding people who didn’t want to be found.  And Hook, whoever he was, definitely didn’t want to be found. Though he seemed to have gotten his stories mixed up, James Hook had no social media profile, and neither did The Rabbit Hole, except for photos posted and tagged by drunk patrons snapping selfies.

Fortunately, dark bars full of people making bad decisions were kind of an Emma Swan specialty.

 _One of the benefits of you not being police_ , Gold had commented in that strange accent of his.   _You have less conventional means at your disposal, though I should warn you that when he ran off with my wife and left my son without a mother, he was rather partial to brunettes._  He’d turned to Graham, then, and smiled.   _Happy hunting, dearie._

Emma’s dress was bright flamingo pink, tight and short and shiny.  The heels were black and made walking difficult, but not impossible; Emma had plenty of practice in turning these shoes to her best advantage on the job.  A black leather jacket completed the look, effectively dressing down the cocktail dress into something more like bar attire and making her, she thought, more approachable.  A little less _don’t fuck with me_ and a little more of an invitation to play with the fire, or at least make the resulting burn seem worth it.

It’s maybe more of an invitation than she intended, as a few brave souls risked losing appendages for the sake of a grope--really, it was a shame that Emma was trying to maintain a low profile.  But she made it to the bar unscathed, and the gropers kept all limbs intact. Emma settled onto a bar stool and decided to keep her jacket on while she waited for James Hook to notice her.

“Hello, beautiful.”

Fuck, his eyes were so blue.

 

\--

 

“I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting,” he said.  “A woman such as yourself deserves my full and prompt attention.”  

“Does that line ever work?” Emma snorted, refusing to play along.

He eyed her up and down, appreciation twinkling in his expression.  “I,” he said seriously, “will let you know, yeah?”

He’s wearing eyeliner, kohl smudged around his eyes.  Blue button-up shirt (partially unbuttoned, matched his eyes, would look even better on the floor), buttoned waistcoat, jeans that showed off his--

 _Fuck_.

Emma needed a drink.

“MacCutcheon,” she said.

“How do you like it?”

“In a glass,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Tough lass,” he said with a laugh, pouring her a shot.  An accent, seriously?

“Yeah, well,” she said, picking the shot glass up and downing it in one.  “It’s been a long day, and I’m thirsty.” She looked around, taking the place in, anything to look at instead of staring at him and his partially-unbuttoned shirt.

“What’s with all the swords?” Emma asked, gesturing at a wall covered in weapons.  The Rabbit Hole fell on the upside of ‘dive’, but only just barely. Maybe it was the Edison bulbs.  The soft yellow glow gave everything a patina of ‘vintage’ instead of ‘grimey’.

“And what are those--boathooks?”

“Aye,” he said.

“What are you, some kind of sailor?”

“In another life,” he said, a shadow of a grin crossing his face.  “I served in the Royal Navy.”

“You’ve practically got an armory in here,” she said.  

“That’s the idea,” he agreed.

“You don’t seem like the type of guy to collect old-fashioned weapons.”

“Aye,” he said again, looking her up and down.  Again. “I collect blondes in bottles, too.”

Emma was a natural blonde--probably another legacy from one of her parents.  She returned his gaze and said only, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps I would.  James Hook.” He held out his hand to her, and Emma shook it, which was when she noticed that he only had the one.

“I know who you are,” she said.

“Ah,” he seemed pleased.  “So you’ve heard of me? Well, I do like to leave an impression.”

“Oh,” Emma said.  “You have. You’re handsome, and charming--”

“Go on,” Hook said, leaning back against the back counter.

“The kind of guy who--and now, stop me if I’ve got this wrong--steals a man’s wife and leaves a boy motherless, then keeps up the grudge by breaking into his shop and stealing from him again.” Emma watched him during her recitation; this was her favorite part.  Skips always broke down when the hot piece of ass they’d been planning on nailing turned the tables on them and cuffed them.

Not in a good way, either.

But Hook just looked at her, stepping forward again and bracing his elbow against the bar, his chin in his hand.  His fingers curled against his upper lip and his eyes were wide and innocent.

“Sounds like a lovely tale,” he said.  “But I’m going to wager that the truth is rather more gruesome.”

Emma was calm.  She was focused.  And he was not lying.

“Besides,” he said evenly.  “I need you to be a mite more specific in your accusations; you see, I’ve had many a man’s wife.”

“And I need you,” Emma said, matching his tone, “to return what you’ve stolen.”

“Tell me something, love,” Hook said, leaning in to her personal space, his eyes never leaving hers.  “If a woman comes to you and begs you to take her away, is that theft?” He ran his tongue over his lower lip and winked at her.  

“Why would she leave him?” Emma demanded, thinking of the son Gold had mentioned.  What kind of woman left her son?

What were they even talking about?

“Because he was a coward,” Hook said easily.  “And because she loved me.”

Emma pulled herself away from his gaze.  Whatever was going on here--he wasn’t lying.

“So, you know who I am, but you won’t even tell me your name?”

“What fun would that be?”  Emma said.

“If you’re helping Rump-- _Gold_ ,” Hook said, with particular emphasis on the name, “I’m afraid you’re fighting for a lost cause.”

“I’m not fighting for anything,” Emma said, “except for my fee.  Tell me what you know about Graham Humbert’s death.” She grabbed his wrist.  “And I’m gonna let you in on a little secret--I’m pretty good at knowing when someone is lying to me.”

“He came in here the other evening, on the hunt,” Hook said, biting down hard on the ‘t’.  “He often did. It’s rather a target-rich environment, as you can see.” He gestured at the crowded room and leered.  “That’s the last time I saw him.”

Emma smiled, the kind that showed no teeth, that was small and controlled, and tightened her grip on his wrist.  With her other hand, she pulled her phone out of her pocket, unlocked it and scrolled to David Nolan’s entry. “He came here looking for you the night he died,” she said.  “A fact I think the Sheriff--” Emma held up the phone to show him “--will find fascinating, don’t you?”

Hook started to pull away, but Emma twisted his wrist just enough to put pressure on it, enough that pulling away would make a scene and potentially force someone to call the Sheriff anyway.

“Well done, lass,” Hook said, genuine appreciation in his gaze.  

“I saw you at his funeral.”  Emma let go of him and his hand reached up to rub the back of his neck.  

“You’ll be Emma Swan, then,” he said.  He had rings on two of his fingers and his thumb, and a freaking earring, a black stud.

“There goes my air of mystery,” she deadpanned.

“On the contrary, love,” Hook said, licking his lips again.  “You’ve bested me. I can count on one hand the number of times someone has done that.”

“Is that a joke?” Emma said drily.  “Because you’re a terrible liar.”

“Ask me what you’ve really come here to ask, Swan,” he said, and something in his face had shifted, like he had dropped the act of whatever part he was trying to play.  His eyes were serious and the tone of his voice had lowered.

“Did you kill him?”

“I did not,” Hook said.

Emma believed him.   _Shit_.

  



	3. Chapter 3

“Now then,” he said.  “Emma Swan. Bail bonds, private investigations.  Twenty-eight years old?”

They weren’t in the bar anymore.  Hook had called out to a beautiful brunette in a micromini, tights and an artfully ripped t-shirt.   _Lacey, my darling.  Cover for me here, will you?_  

She’d laughed and given him a wink.   _I’ve got this, Jamie._

And he’d taken Emma to a small but immaculate office, dimly lit, rimmed with books.   _She’s new,_ Hook had said of the brunette, _but does the job like she’s been here for decades._  Something about that had amused him; Hook seemed consistently to be amusing himself with jokes only he understood.  Any man who kept a skull-and-crossbones on the wall was definitely a man with an unusual sense of humor--in fact, this room had a distinct nautical theme, with a red flag draped above the black one and an honest-to-goodness ship in a bottle on the desk, and it was all a far cry from the badly-curated murder-tinged whimsy that made up the decor of the main bar.

“That’s oddly specific,” Emma countered.  “Do I, like, get a prize if you’re right?”

His eyes ran over her, and Emma felt like she was being evaluated.  Not the first time that had happened to her, but definitely the first time she had no idea what they were looking for.

“An educated guess,” Hood said, and nothing else.  “So, then, your Graham Humbert came looking for me.”

“He wasn’t my anything,” Emma said quickly.  Maybe too quickly.

“Aye,” Hook said.  “Of that I’m well aware.”  He twisted his thumb against the metal of one of his rings and broke eye contact, looking down and away from her.  “We weren’t friends, you know. Barely even acquainted. But you might say that we shared certain connections in common.” Hook looked at her quickly and looked away again.  “I hadn’t seen him in as long as I can remember.”

There was something strange underlying the words.  Not a lie, but not the truth.

“He was involved with Regina Mills,” Emma said.

“Indeed he was.”  He made a sound, almost like a bark, and it took Emma a moment to realize it was a laugh.  “You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but she rather held his heart in her hands.”

Emma winced.

“Apologies, love,” Hook said quickly, and with apparent sincerity.  “That was in rather poor taste, I admit.”

“You were too, weren’t you?”  Emma asked instead of acknowledging his half-assed apology.  “Involved with her?”

Another harsh laugh escaped him.  “Indeed I was, though not in the way you think.  I used to do some work for the family.”

“You?” Emma smirked.  “A man who used to be a sailor and now owns a bar?”

“I contain multitudes,” he said, batting his eyelashes.  “And the bar is, in effect, payment.” He did that thing again, where he over-emphasized the harsh consonants.  “For services rendered.” He ran his tongue over his bottom lip.

“And what does this have to do with Graham?” Emma demanded.

“Absolutely nothing, love,” he said.  “I’m just pointing out that you might be surprised by what they teach you in the Royal Navy.”

“You realize you are the only one in this entire neighborhood who owns their property outright instead of paying rent to Robert Gold?”

“Am I?”  He examined his fingernails.  “That’s fortuitous.” It was obscene, the way Hook made words sound, but Emma knew a distraction when she saw one.  This man used words as deflections, armor not unlike her collection of leather jackets.

“She came to see me,” Emma said.

“Did she?”  That got Hook’s attention.  “And what did you think of Her Majesty the Queen?”

“Her what now?”

“Regina, love.  Latin.”

“You speak Latin?”  Emma’s eyebrows definitely went up.

“And Greek,” he pointed out, smirking.

“They teach you that in the Royal Navy?”

“Something like that,” he agreed.

Emma’s head was beginning to hurt.  This was shaping up the be the world’s worst first draft of “Who’s on first”--she wasn’t getting anywhere, and she needed another drink.

“What did she want?” Hook asked, and for the first time, there was genuine curiosity in his tone.  He twisted behind him, pulling out a bottle, then repeated the process and came up with two glasses pinched between his thumb and forefinger, placing one in front of her.  He pulled the cork with his teeth, poured himself a shot, and then gestured at her with the bottle.

Emma gave him a look.  

“You’re something of an open book, Swan,” Hook said, the picture of innocent hospitality, “or did you not want another drink?”

“Regina wanted to know,” Emma said, ignoring his outstretched hand, “what I was doing about Graham’s death.”

“Don’t make a man drink alone, love.”

“I don’t want a drink,” she lied.  “Or a man.”

Hook pouted.  “Now who’s not telling the truth?”

Emma took the bottle from his hand and poured herself three fingers’ worth.

“I do find that spirits can be an excellent solution to so many of life’s problems,” Hook said with false cheerfulness, “so I am glad to see that you are making progress.”

“A man is dead, Hook.  I need you to give me back whatever it is you’ve taken.”

Hook considered her for a moment before tossing back his shot.  “ _She’s_ dead, Swan.  Whatever that bloody crocodile has you looking for, I don’t have it.”

“His wife?” Emma said, startled.  She hadn’t known that. “Look, I’m sorry she died--”

“Died,” Hook snorted.  “Like it was some kind of accident.”

“What about his son?”  Even if what Hook was saying was true--and it sounded true--there was still a boy missing his parents--his mother had still left him before her death--and Emma took that somewhat personally.

“His son is better off,” Hook said, pouring another shot and sounding sad.  “It matters not what that monster thinks he is playing at, his son does not want to be found.  And you, Swan, helping him? I fear we’re working at cross purposes.” He drank his second shot and said, “It’s a shame, really, Emma.  I think we could make quite the team.”

“And what,” Emma wanted to know, “would our objective be?”

“To avenge your partner,” he said, as if it would be that simple.  “To exact revenge on the man who took my hand, Rumplestiltskin.”

 

\--

 

“Swan!”  Hook called, rushing after her.  “Swan, wait up!”

Emma was ten or fifteen feet out the door of The Rabbit Hole when she doubled back quickly and pushed herself against him.  “Whoa!” she cried. “Whoa, whoa whoa.”

James Hook just smiled at her, pulling them closer together.  “It’s about bloody time.”

Emma hit him.  “I seem to have a shadow,” she said, gesturing at the figure running into the darkness--the one that had lunged itself at her and forced her up against Hook.

“I suppose,” Hook said, pretending to consider it, “that’s a plausible excuse for grabbing me, but next time, don’t stand on ceremony.”

Was the man insane?  “Do you have any idea what you sound like right now?  Who the fuck is Rumplestiltskin?”

Hook’s face fell, ever so slightly.  “I sound like a crazy person, I’m sure.  Apologies, love, I thought Humbert might have--”  He paused, took a breath. “Would you settle for ‘dashing rapscallion’?”

“Excuse me?” Emma stuttered.

“As opposed to ‘crazy person,’ Swan,” Hook pushed, and then leaned in closer at her continued silence, angling his head so their eyes were level.  “Scoundrel, perhaps?”

The full focus of this man’s attention was nearly unbearable, which was how she noticed the red streak on his shoulder--where she’d grabbed him, she added mentally with a sigh--Emma desperately needed to break eye contact and maintain her focus.  Unfortunately, that just drew Hook’s eyes to the spot as well, and he knew immediately what it was.

“Swan,” he said, and he sounded disappointed.  “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s nothing,” Emma insisted.  “Just, the jerk who came after me must have had a knife or something.”

“Give me your hand,” Hook said.

“What?” Emma said, pulling herself away--because she hadn’t actually done that yet.

“It’s cut,” Hook said, getting impatient.  “Let me help you.”

“No,” Emma said, taking another step back.  Hook countered by stepping forward. “It’s fine,”  Emma said.

“Swan,” Hook sighed.  “It’s not.” And he ran his hand down her arm, curling his fingers around her wrist and lifting it for closer inspection, balancing her hand on his left wrist against his prosthetic.

“I’m not taking medical advice from a man who has named himself after a character in a fairy tale and who thinks my client can spin straw into gold,” Emma muttered.  “Not even when he suddenly decides to be a gentleman.”

Hook’s face twisted, that already-familiar smirk pulling at his mouth as he took something out of his pocket.  “I,” he said, and his tone was serious in spite of his expression, “am always a gentleman.” He looked at Emma through eyelashes that were thicker than hers were after several rounds of lash primer as he repeated his bit with the cork and moved to pour the contents over the small slash in her palm.

“What is that?” Emma asked suspiciously, then swore as the liquid hit her skin.

“It’s rum,” Hook said.  “And a bloody waste of it.”  He handed the flask to her before she could refuse and pulled out a handkerchief from his coat pocket, pressing it into her hand before Emma could try to pull away again and tying it off with his teeth.

Just--his _teeth_.  Why?

Hook’s eyes never left hers, not even as he stepped away from her.

Emma sighed and took a swig of the rum in resignation.  “Scoundrel it is, then,” she said, taking a definitive step backward and crossing her arms across her body in the universal signal for _back off_.  Because she knew what he was doing, she had seen this movie before, and it hadn’t ended well.

They were not a team.

They _could not_ be a team.

“Why were you following me?”

“I wanted to continue our conversation,” he said.  “Is that so hard to believe?”

Emma shook her head slowly.

He grinned, shrugged.  “And," he said, "I would like to see Regina Mills.  I was hoping you would be so kind as to facilitate transportation.”

“You don’t drive?”

“I don’t drive a car,” Hook said.  “It’s not by choice that I live here in the city, love, it’s by necessity.”

Emma felt her resistance wavering.  “What makes you think I’d be willing to help you?”

“You seem,” Hook paused, as if searching for the correct word, “motivated.”

“What happened to cross purposes?”

“I look at this very simply,” Hook said.  “I help you get what you want, and it gets me what I want.  No more, no less. Besides, I find that I quite fancy you--when you’re not yelling at me, that is.”

“I don’t understand you,” Emma said.

“The mystique is part of my charm, I assure you,” Hook said, raising his eyebrows.  

But she had already given in to whatever scheme this was, had given in the minute she pushed herself against him.  Emma gestured for him to go ahead, and they started walking to her car. Hook took in the careworn yellow Beetle with a grin on his face.  “Quite a vessel you captain here, Swan,” he said, pulling the door open on the passenger side.

“It seemed like the best choice at the time,” Emma said softly, meaning it, momentarily hating herself for how wrong she had been--and how much this felt like the same beginning all over again.  She ran a quick address search on her phone and come up with nothing.

“I know where she lives, lass,” Hook said.  “I’ll navigate.”

Emma pulled out of her spot, the silence growing between them, interspersed at odd intervals with his muttered directions until he spoke.  “You know, Swan, most people would find your silence off-putting, but I should warn you that I love a challenge.”

“No challenge,” Emma said.  “I’m not looking for someone who’s gonna give his heart to the world, or some true love riding to my rescue.”

“But?” Hook prompted.

“I mean,” Emma said, dripping with sarcasm, “somewhere in the universe, there's gotta be a guy who'll keep me warm when I'm cold, feed me when I'm hungry and maybe, on occasion, take me dancing.”

“No,” he said.  “That’s not it. You’re afraid--to talk, to reveal yourself.”

“Am I?” Emma said flatly.  “What are we doing now? What happened to ‘a bit of an open book’?”  She finished with a horrible imitation of his accent.

“You’re afraid to trust me.”

“Afraid to trust the guy who believes in fairy tales, Captain Hook?”  Emma snorted. “However did you guess?”

“Bartender’s a sympathetic ear, love,” Hook said, “but I don’t need you to share.  You have that look in your eyes.”

Emma’s entire body went still.

“The one,” Hook said, as if she didn’t already know--didn’t own a freaking mirror, “you get when you’ve been left alone.”

“Now I’m some kind of lost girl?”  Emma forced herself to laugh. “Nice try, Hook, but my world ain’t Neverland.”

“My point, Swan, is that an orphan’s an orphan.”

Emma said nothing, but Hook pressed on.  “And True Love--well, that’s the rarest magic of all, or so they say.  Have you ever even been in love?”

Emma narrowed her eyes at him, took a deep breath, and lied.  “No,” she said simply. “I have never been in love.” She pulled the car against the curb and turned off the ignition.  “We’re here,” she said.

“Who’s the guy, Swan?” he said, and his voice was almost free of affect.  She could--almost--believe he meant it.

“What guy?” Emma said, because fuck him and his open-book bullshit.

“The one,” Hook said as if it was obvious, “who left you with such a high opinion of me.”

Emma got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind her.

 

\--  


_“I’m out on a case tonight,”_ Emma texted Mary Margaret while she waited for Hook to catch her up.   _“Enjoy having the place to yourself,”_ she added before slipping the phone back into a pocket.  The text was meant to give her something to do, provide some kind of quick break for her mind and her thoughts to settle, but James Hook’s mere presence seemed to make that impossible.  The man himself was impossible--impossibly beautiful, impossibly infuriating, impossibly insightful--and he was still, technically, at a minimum, a person of interest in an active homicide investigation even before Emma considered her own case.

Still.  He said he hadn’t done it, and Emma believed him.  She was attracted to him, too, like that was even news--undoubtedly Hook had admirers of all genders, between his dark good looks and his attitude and the way he stared at you like you were the only thing that mattered in the world.  

“Do me a favor, Swan, when we go in there,” he said seriously, and he was doing exactly that, staring at her, and his eyes were just so ridiculous and blue as he nodded toward the well-lit lobby of the Mills’ Organization office building.  “Don’t believe I’m as crooked as I seem to be. I haven’t lived a good life, and I’ve done worse things than you can ever imagine. But if you can trust me, just a little--”

“Right,” Emma said.  “The team thing again.”

“I think we can help each other, Swan.  I’m not much for loyalty, but I’ll swear allegiance to whomever can help me.  I was hoping it’d be you.”

“You want to kill him, don’t you?” Emma interrupted, because she had figured out at least that much in between the fairy-tale nonsense he’d spouted.  Emma understood pissed, she understood revenge, she understood needing allies and most of all she understood two fucking years in Tallahassee and--

Hook was still staring at her.  Deep breath.

“Gold took more than your hand from you,” she said, not asking.  “He’s the one that killed her. That’s what this is all about for you.”

“You’re quite perceptive, Swan, for someone who’s never been in love,” he said.

Emma shrugged.

One second more of his eyes on her, Emma feeling like he could drill a hole into her head, and then his entire expression shifted all over again.  “Alas, in this world, we are slaves to time, and it is getting quite late for a social call. Tick-tock, love, and put your hand right there, that’s a good girl.”  

Emma smiled, in spite of herself, and rolled her eyes.  “Get on with it, Hook,” she said, ignoring the arm he held out like a dandy on a PBS period piece.  “And don’t think for one second I’m taking my eyes off of you.”

“I would despair if you did,” Hook said with a wink, and walked in.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a wide room, well-lit, with a wall of windows.  The decor was black and white and stark, tasteful and minimalistic, and the centerpoint was a desk facing away from the bank of windows.  To access it, Hook and Emma had to walk down a sort of allee that showed off the inlay floor; on one side was a table that could seat six and on the other was a white couch facing a fireplace, with a statue of a horse anchoring the mantle.  The wallpaper was a grim silhouetted forest and a heavy chandelier dangled from the ceiling. Regina Mills’ desk had no front piece, it balanced on a pair of elaborate sawhorses and gave anyone walking in a view of her legs, which were now on display as Regina was wearing a skirt with her jacket as opposed to the trousers Emma had seen earlier in the day.  Like maybe the job of threatening Emma Swan had required a wardrobe change.

As for Regina Mills herself, she was in a rage.

Emma was giving serious consideration to the idea that rage was the woman’s perpetual state; still, whatever Emma had seen of Regina that afternoon was nothing when taken against her reaction to the presence of James Hook.  And her, Emma. And her presence, there, in the company of James Hook. Her own outfit probably wasn’t helping matters, either--at least when it came to Regina, but Hook had more than once had his eyes trained, in a most ungentlemanly fashion, on her ass, and seemed to enjoy her outfit very much.  Yay?

Regina Mills was actually, by all appearances, several levels above rage and they weren’t even fully through the door yet.  Even her eyes seemed to be on fire, alight with heat that was surely capable of melting steel. “Captain Hook,” she said silkily, her voice attempting to suppress all of the emotion already on display.  “I’m positively delighted to see you again.”

Emma did not need to be either calm or focused to know that was a lie.  The face was a dead giveaway.

“I was sure you would be,” Hook said, spreading his hands and inclining his head in a parody of a bow.  He had hardly spoken well of his former employer, but it still surprised Emma to see the complete lack of expression on his face.  The tone of his voice was dry, sharp and uninterested. Even the liveliness in his eyes was missing, though Regina’s eyes still looked capable of shooting fire as her eyebrows went straight up into her hairline.

“The question is,” Regina said, “how you knew to find me at all.”

“It is, rather, isn’t it?” Hook said, and nothing else, waiting for Regina to continue.

She was quiet a moment before seeming to choose another tack.  “And the Swan girl,” Regina said, gesturing at Emma dismissively.  “What kind of company have you been keeping all of this time?”

“Oh, Regina,” Hook sighed, affecting disappointment.  “I thought you knew me better than that, after ‘all of this time.’  You of all people should know I tend to favor brunettes.”

Gold had said much the same and Emma was enough of a detective to have deduced that the former--the late--Mrs. Gold must have been a brunette, only the comment clearly meant something else to Regina.  Her eyes narrowed and Emma was briefly on her side for this one--that was positively the worst excuse for making a pass Emma had ever seen, and she had once been picked up by the guy sleeping in the backseat of her stolen car.  But Hook stood there, completely impassive still, and there was something charged in the air around them.

Understanding dawned on Regina’s face.  “The maid,” she said flatly.

Hook nodded, satisfied.  “I do apologize,” he said, self-evidently not sorry at all.  “I know you thought you were the only one who could charm Nurse Ratched and fly one out of the cuckoo’s nest, but given the circumstances it seemed wise to acquire some leverage.”  Hook’s face contorted into a leer as he said, “But the, you would know all about that, wouldn’t you.”

Regina’s expression, if it was possible, got even darker.

“What are you doing here, Captain?”

Again with the title, Emma noticed.  Was that somehow a real thing, and not just a joke?  Had that been his rank in the Navy?

“I’ve come to condole with you on the loss of your pet,” Hook said, and his sharp consonants were back, harsh and pointed now instead of playful and flirtatious.  

“Was it you?” Regina said.

“I’m flattered, Regina,” Hook said, holding up his left hand, “but this is hardly capable of such a feat.  Unless, of course, there is another appendage you would prefer.”

Emma wondered if Hook knew how to have a conversation without it sounding dirty.

“What happened to Graham Humbert?” Regina demanded.  It was a command from someone expecting to be obeyed.

Hook raised his eyebrows and deliberately paused, watching Regina’s hands ball up into fists.  “The Dark One,” he said eventually.

Regina’s hands relaxed.  “How much of your own bar’s rum have you been drinking?” she laughed.  “That’s not possible.”

“Ah, yes,” Hook said in a lazy drawl.  “The bar. Do allow me to thank you for that, Your Majesty.  I so love a life spent in servitude to others, you know. My ship in a bottle was a particularly nice reminder that I did not understand what I had agreed to when you offered me this...opportunity.”

Emma lost track somewhere around “Majesty” but she did notice Regina’s lips curl very slightly upward--she was pleased with herself.

Hook seemed determined to end that, though.  “But do consider, Majesty,” he pressed on, “whether you truly believe that you’ve kept the Dark One tame all of these years in this realm.  Whether you’ve truly kept him a prisoner, with no plans, no contingencies, and no means of acting upon them?” Regina’s expression shifted again, and Hook smirked.  It was a completely different expression than the one Emma had seen behind his bar or in his office, now something dark and cruel.

They stood like that for a moment, no one moving.  “It’s not possible,” Regina repeated, but all three of them knew she said it in an attempt to convince herself.

“But,” Hook said, the word rolling off his tongue, “as you so wisely pointed out, I’ve managed to find you.  I’ve taken steps.” Hook matched his actions to his words, pushing into Regina’s space, leaning over the desk and balancing his weight on the one hand.  “He has, too. You knew it the instant you saw what had been done to Humbert.”

“I don’t much like your manners, Hook,” Regina snapped, but Hook had obviously gotten to her.  “People don’t talk like that to me.”

“Oh,” Hook said, drawing out the syllable.  “Don’t you? Perhaps I’m not crazy about yours, either.  Perhaps I’ve been grieving over them these past twenty-eight years, drinking rum behind my bar, biding my time.  You know what a persistent fellow I am, Regina. You know that twenty-eight years is barely a prologue for me.”

“Hook,” Regina said, her voice sharp with warning.

“And speaking of my manners, Your Majesty, I’ve been remiss in not properly introducing--”

“Who is she?” Regina interrupted.  “What is your purpose in bringing her here?”

“She is right here, thanks,” Emma said, glaring.  “And she would love to know what the hell you two think is going on.”  Because--’Dark One’? ‘Your Majesty’? ‘Captain’? Talking about Rumplestiltskin like that was an actual name for an actual person--this was so far down the rabbit hole that Emma was starting to wonder if a hookah-smoking caterpillar had dropped something into the rum back at the bar.

Only she hadn’t actually drank any of the rum.  And she was making bad fairy tale puns in her head while Hook and Regina ignored her, as if she had served her purpose in this conversation, and she had been wrong, because there was one thing Emma understood about all of this:  leverage. She was part of Hook’s leverage, and as fury started to swirl up around her there was also the tiniest stab of disappointment and sadness, a faint wisp of _not again_.

“Twenty-eight years,” Hook emphasized each word again, the third time he had done so in fewer than three minutes, oddly specific just as he had been in the office at The Rabbit Hole.  “That is quite a time, is it not? And Swan, here, is only just turned twenty-eight years old.”

The specificity clearly meant something to Regina, though, because any trace of calm was gone and the rage had taken over.  ”Is this a joke, Captain? Something about Miss Swan’s ridiculous tattoo?”

Hook smirked again, the same cruel distortion of his lips, and shook his head.  “I can’t count meself an expert, of course,” he said, “but I am a man of some considerable education and I’ve learned over the years of two things that are always true in a situation such as this one.  Which one, Your Majesty, do you suppose is relevant here?”

That really got to her, Emma saw.  Her entire body froze, her eyes widened and then shut completely for a minute until Regina visibly forced herself to open them again, and to face her interlocutor and his sickening, shit-eating grin.

“All curses can be broken,” Regina practically spat the words out at them.

And now, curses.  Un-fucking-believable.

Regina and Hook, though, obviously both believed.  In curses.

“And yours, Regina, is weakening,” Hook said, pulling back from the desk and resuming his earlier stance, the fingers of his hand wrapped around his belt.  “Which brings us back to the subject of Humbert. Did you know that he was hired and sent after me? Any guesses by whom?”

“No,” Regina said, her perfectly-painted lips pressed into a thin line.

“It would appear,” Hook continued, “that the Dark One has noticed whatever you’ve taken is gone missing.  ‘Tis a curious thing, no? For a man who, like me, should have no memory? Somehow, Regina, I don’t see that ending well for you.”  

“Get.  Out.” Regina gestured at the door with such force that Emma half-expected it to fly open by the force of her will alone.  “Now. Both of you.”

“Willingly, Your Majesty,” Hook intoned, accompanying it with another mocking bow.  “Come, Swan, we’re done here.”

And they left.

 

\--

 

Emma wanted to stalk off in a huff but her present footwear made that impossible.  Not to mention, Hook was definitely staring at her ass again, and there was no point in prolonging his opportunity.  She squared her shoulders, hands on her hips, legs slightly apart. Her best glare was on her face and she was back in _do not fuck with me_ mode as Hook already had his arms up in a placating sort of gesture that Emma was absolutely, positively not in the mood for.

“Give me one good reason,” Emma said, “not to punch you in the face.”  It ended up coming out as more of a snarl than a request but Emma was okay with that as long as it got her point across.

“Considering that I just did you a favor, that would be very bad form,” Hook said.

“In what universe does that shitshow count as doing me a favor?”

“Regina’s been spooked, love,” Hook said, his tone condescending as hell.  “She’ll look to protect whatever it was she took, which means that you shall be able to retrieve it on behalf of your...client.”  He said the word as if it left an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

Emma glared at him some more, this time because he was right.  It was an old bail bonds trick for smoking out a perp--a classic, really, and Emma should have thought of it for herself.

“You seem very sure of that,” Emma said.  “In fact, you seem to know her pretty well.  What happened between the two of you back there?”

“Nothing,” Hook said smoothly.  “I’ve told you, Swan, I did some work for the family once, long ago.”

“How do I know that you don’t have whatever it is Gold is looking for?  How do I know you didn’t steal from him?”

“Oh, I’ve stolen from him,” Hook said easily, then raised his eyebrows at her expression.  “Not my Milah, Swan--she left him and he killed her for it, and it would be my preference not to speak of her further.  But know this, Swan: I do not traffic in unwilling women.”

“So what did you steal?”

“Nothing I’ve any intention of giving back,” Hook said with some finality.  “And, as pertains to your particular mission, nothing he knows is missing.”

“So Captain Hook is a pirate after all, then?”

“I told you, love,” he said. “I contain multitudes.”

 _The look you get when you’ve been left alone_ , he’d said, only he’d had it too, and Emma had got the sense that under all of that innuendo, there was someone just trying to keep the world enough at bay to slay his own demons.  She’d thought that, against all odds, she was beginning to get a handle on him. They’d shared something, some moment of understanding, in spite of his delusions and his revenge fantasies and Emma being--well, Emma.  Then she had stood in a room with him, watching him face off against Regina, and it was like she was seeing an entirely different person--and the worst part of that was, she was pretty sure none of what he said had been a lie.  Curses and Queens and Rumple-fucking-stiltskin and he seemed to think all of that was true.

“You’re lying,” Emma said.  “What aren’t you telling me about you and ‘Her Majesty,’ _Captain_?

“Nothing,” Hook insisted.  “That’s my tale and I’m sticking to it.”

“Not good enough,” Emma snapped.  “I want answers, Hook. Real ones.”

“I don’t know what else you want me to say,” Hook said, and suddenly she was back with the man she’d met in the bar and he was staring at her like she was the only thing he ever wanted to look at.

Emma shifted her head, turning away from his gaze, and crossed her arms, feeling the leather there--battle mode, activated.  She couldn’t stomp her foot--the shoes again--but she took a step back. It was deja-vu; they had already done this dance tonight, and she was no closer to knowing who’d killed Graham even if he was right about retrieving Gold’s property from Regina Mills.

“Who are you, really?”

“James Hook,” he said.  “That’s my name. That’s been my name as long as I’ve been in this world, I swear to you.”

“James Hook,” Emma said, “is a character from a story book.  So is Rumplestiltskin. Curses are not real, and there is no way that you have known Regina Mills for twenty-eight years unless you worked for her family when you were seven years old, and that is definitely too young to have enlisted in the Royal Navy even if you came by way of Neverland.”

Hook was quiet, and he hesitated before speaking.  “I spent many years in Neverland,” he said.

“Did you get there through a rabbit hole?” Emma retorted, her temper flaring.  “On your way to Wonderland?”

“Travel between realms does require a portal,” Hook said, still serious.  “Now, what is all of this palaver about a tattoo?”

“No,” Emma said.  “You do not get to screw with me right now.  My partner is dead and whatever game you are playing has nothing to do with me.  We are not a team and I am not helping you.”

Hook grabbed her arm out of the air, where she had been gesturing with it, where the sleeve of her jacket had shifted up her arm and the flash of ink on skin was visible.  Like Regina had done, he stared at it; unlike Regina, he nodded, rubbing absently at her pulse point with his thumb, almost as if he was trying to soothe her. “Here’s the thing, love,” he said, and then went quiet again, his thumb still circling softly against her skin.  

When she yanked her arm away from his grasp, Emma’s hands went to her pockets, her anger and her frustration pulling her grief back to the surface again.  But something about the soft, serious tone of his voice kept her still, waiting for whatever he might say next.

“Everything you think you believe is wrong,” Hook said finally.

“You don’t know anything about me or what I believe.”

“Alas, love,” he said, and he sounded resigned.  “I know you better than you know yourself--I know who you are and where you came from.  I know what became of your parents and why you grew up alone. Your parents’ entire kingdom was cursed.  They sent you here to break it. And all of it is because of Regina Mills and Robert Gold.”

Emma would later blame the sheer ridiculousness of the situation for why she didn’t notice the flashing lights headed in their direction.

“My parents?”  Emma wanted to laugh, but the noise she made didn’t come close to that.  “Their kingdom? A curse? Do you know what you sound like?”

The lights were closer, now, and they were attached to a sheriff’s cruiser.

“And why,” Emma added, “is everyone suddenly obsessed with my tattoo?”

“It’s true, love, all of it.  The tattoo is just proof.”

“Proof of _what_ , exactly,?”

David Nolan was at the wheel, and he was pulling up alongside them.  He put the car in park, lights still flashing, and opened his door. He called her name but made straight for Hook.

“James Hook?”  

Hook nodded, wary, his eyes moving straight toward Emma.  Emma just held up her hands, a mirror of his earlier gesture.   _Not me,_ she mouthed.

“There’s been a complaint of harassment made against you,” Nolan said.  “And you’re needed for questioning in the matter of Graham Humbert’s death.”  David had gotten Hook’s hands behind his back, pulling out the cuffs.

“I’m devastated, love,” Hook said, and his voice was deadly calm as the first bracelet clinked.  “Didn’t you even want to do the honors?” His eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, were like chips of ice as he stared at her.

“Call me ‘love’ one more time,” Emma said, “and you will lose the other hand.”  

“Emma,” Hook said, and there was a note of pleading in his voice.  “Did I tell you a lie?”

She ignored him, ignored David calling her name again and got back into her car, starting it and shifting and pulling away before Hook was fully situated in the backseat of the cruiser.  She was going to move the car, park it again, and stake out Regina.

She was not going to spend the night thinking about James Hook and Graham Humbert and what Graham could possibly have gotten into with him.  She was not going to think about Hook’s delusions and Graham’s death. She was not going to think about Neal or the look in Hook’s eyes when he had spoken to her and how, against all of her better instincts, Emma might actually have believed him.

Just because you believe something does not make it real, Emma reminded herself as she watched the cruiser pull away.  She couldn’t take the chance that she was wrong about him--more importantly, she would not take the chance that she was right. _Look out for yourself and you never get hurt_ , Emma reminded herself, and then did what she was best at:  she ran away.

 

\--

 

The Mills Organization was locked down tight for the evening by the time Emma had re-situated herself and her car.  She had managed to find a parking space that was legal, had sightlines into the building, and was far enough back that the bright yellow car would not be too memorable.  There was even a nearby streetlight that gave enough light to see by without destroying her night vision.

It was almost enough to make a person believe in magic, she thought to herself, and tried to laugh about it.

She let herself lose track of time, finding the zone of just watching and waiting, her eyes casually trained on the upper window claimed by Regina Mills, and then she saw it--the light flickering.  Emma shifted forward in her seat, muscles tensing. She had her binoculars close at hand, on the seat next to her. The light went out and Emma held her breath, fingers curled around the door handle, ready to get out.  She counted, waiting--

A figure exited the building, his stride purposeful.  He was tall and thin, his shoulders slightly broad, bulked up by the heavy jacket he wore.  Emma grabbed her binocs for a closer look _._

The man walking out of the building was Graham Humbert.

She dropped the binoculars on the seat and wrenched the door open, almost vomiting onto the pavement as she spilled out of the car and stood there, paralyzed.  Graham hadn’t seen her yet, he seemed to be looking for someone, his eyes scanning the darkness until the slight frownlines eased. A man approached, slight of frame, his hair almost shoulder length.  He, too, wore a coat, a long one made of some kind of animal skin that was unlike anything Emma had ever seen before. Just as he came apace with Graham, he reached out toward his chest, blocking Emma’s view, and wrenched his arm backward.

Emma screamed, trying to force her frozen legs toward the men just as Graham’s attacker stepped back and Emma got a clear view of Graham’s chest as he fell.  Emma ran across the street just in time to see Graham hit the ground, trying to angle herself so that she could catch him. The eyes that met hers weren’t Graham’s gentle brown, though; they were piercing blue, the hair dark and falling over his forehead.

Hook.  “Hello, beautiful,” he rasped.  It was Hook’s body with a gaping hole in the chest.  “And here I didn’t think you’d notice.” His eyes squeezing shut for a minute before he forced them open again, looked her dead in the eye with something like a smile.  “Just like Milah when the crocodile took her from me.”

The attacker, meanwhile, had turned, again before Emma could see anything more than a flash of skin that seemed to glitter in the dim streetlights, a giggle echoing in the darkness of the night.

“Have I told you a lie?”

Emma jerked awake and gripped the wheel, her entire body shaking in the aftershock of the nightmare, and she had to physically restrain herself from turning around and driving back to The Rabbit Hole.

She only managed it when she remembered that Sheriff Nolan probably still had Hook in lockup.

 

\--

 

The thing about stakeouts was that you needed actually to stay awake in order to execute one, so Emma gave up the game and turned the Bug back toward home.  She parked the car in the first open spot within spitting distance and found herself running inside, nearly banging the door into the wall when she came through.  She called out an apology to Mary Margaret before remembering that it was something like three in the morning and only sort-of noticed that her roommate wasn’t even home as she started pulling drawers and cabinets open, looking for the one box that she never unpacked, never once in the seven different addresses or the countless homes before that.  Its contents fit in her backpack, squished up and neglected but never left behind--fit in with just enough room for a toothbrush and a change of clothes and a few pairs of socks, maybe a hat if she was living someplace cold.

The blanket was soft, the knitted wool somehow still fluffy under her fingers in spite of its ignominious storage conditions.  Emma pulled it out, slowly, running her fingers across the smooth purple ribbon, feeling the simple running stitch across the corner that spelled out her name.  She sat cross-legged on the floor and draped the blanket over her legs and told herself it was just for a minute.

Emma’s life was full of nightmares.  Sometimes, on her worst days, her entire existence actually felt like one; a waking hell from which there was no escape except her own determination to keep going, to keep running.  But other times, the nightmares would be so startling that she found herself retreating to the one tangible symbol she had that her parents had once cared for her. Tonight was one of those times:  she could still see his face. And she wasn’t sure if she meant Graham’s or Hook’s or both, so she sat on the floor with her blanket and sobbed.

_Have I told you a lie?_

_There’s a reason you’re alone_.

_We would make quite the team._

The blanket didn’t offer much in terms of real warmth when she sat on the floor, but Emma didn’t notice.  She rubbed her hand across her wrist as though she could feel the motif inked there--remembered a time and a girl and a friend, her only friend, scribbling on that wrist and saying _now we can both be special_.  Neal and how he had made her feel special; prison and the tattoo to remind herself that she was special without anyone’s help; the buttercup because once upon a time there had been a girl in a storybook that no one thought was special and she became a princess, the True Love to end all True Loves.

There was something else in the box, something she had never seen before.   _Once Upon a Time,_ gilded and in an old-timey script on brown leather binding that had seen better days. The book was heavy and awkwardly-shaped and Emma was going to kill Mary Margaret if her roommate had actually stooped to going through her shit and accidentally leaving the evidence behind.  She pulled the book from the box and settled it on her lap, on top of the blanket, turning open to a page at random: a cartoonish drawing of a wedding, the bride in white and the groom in plate armor complete with sword belt. It was True Love and Happily Ever After, all of it Mary Margaret down to the core.  

Only the longer Emma stared at the illustration, the more the image began to seem like a photograph, like she could almost see their faces and the stained glass and the way the princess’s skirt fluttered not from fabric but from feathers dancing in the air.

Emma slammed the book shut almost exactly at the moment when the door banged open again, a slightly disheveled and fully distracted Mary Margaret walking in and nearly tripping over her.

“Oh!”  Mary Margaret fluttered around her, reaching a hand out toward the floor, apparently changing her mind, and then covering her mouth with it.  “Emma! I didn’t expect you.” She paused. “On the floor.”

“Mary Margaret,” Emma said, rubbing the tears out from under her eyes before her friend had enough focus to notice them.  She really did not want a post-coital Mary Margaret going all mother-hen at three in the morning after the night she’d had.  “Sorry. Got caught up in...a case.” Which wasn’t technically a lie.

“Hmmm?” Mary Margaret said, still distracted.  “Oh, that’s good.”

Emma looked at her friend, really looked at her:  the woman was a wreck. Tear streaks on her face, the kind that came from ugly crying--and Sheriff Nolan had been the one to pull Hook into custody.  So--

“Where have you been?”

“Out,” Mary Margaret said, dully.  “Walking. By the water?”

“Are you asking me?” Emma said.

“What?”  And there was that famous Mary Margaret focus, looking at her as if she had just noticed the two of them were standing in their dining area in the middle of the night.  “Emma, what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” Emma said.

“‘Nothing’ with you always means something,” Mary Margaret sighed, “because if it were nothing, you wouldn’t be sitting on our floor at three in the morning.”

“We were talking about you,” Emma said, a little desperate.

“Yeah,” Mary Margaret said.  “But talking about you is easier right now.  Remember how you told me to stay away from David and I didn’t?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, pushing herself upright and going for the Scotch.  Mary Margaret didn’t drink that often, but they kept a bottle of it in the same cupboard where Emma had hidden her blanket.  Mary Margaret bent over and picked the book up off the floor.

“Where did you find this?”

“In the cupboard,” Emma said, deciding not to ask about the snooping.  She poured herself a shot and then another one for her friend, handing it over.

“I haven’t seen that in years,” Mary Margaret said.  “It used to be my favorite book, you know.”

Emma took her drink and poured another.  “Fairy tales?” Emma laughed, and it was harsh--slightly hysterical, even.  “Seems about right for you.” She finished the second shot and put the glass down.

“No,” Mary Margaret said, running her fingers across the gilded lettering.  “It was more than that. It was hope. Like--believing in even the possibility of a happy ending.”

“Hope,” Emma repeated dubiously.

“And belief,” Mary Margaret said.  “It’s a very powerful thing, you know.”

“Whatever,” Emma said, summoning a smile for her friend.  She walked toward the ladder to her loft before turning back in an attempt to offer Mary Margaret some kind of reassurance, but Mary Margaret was no longer there.  Or maybe she was, only her hair--long now instead of the short pixie cut she typically favored--her hair piled on her head, her waist confined in a dress with a white silk corseted bodice.

The skirt had feathers.

“Mary Margaret?” Emma said.

“Yes?”  The woman in white answered her.

“Good night,” Emma said.


	5. Chapter 5

Sleep was a challenge and beginning daylight was making the sky go grey; Emma was already dressed and out the door by the time five o’clock came and went.  She had gone to bed full of whiskey and frustration and fear, chasing a vision of a woman in white through the pages of the storybook she’d gone downstairs for as soon as she’d heard her roommate’s sobbing go quiet and still.  

She hadn’t slept.

The fairy tales were--unexpected.  To begin with, they were not in any sort of chronological order, meandering through a series of origin stories and follow-ups seemingly based on whatever interested the author most at that particular moment; an increasingly hard-to-follow series of circumlocutions as if they had been paid by the plot twist to churn out the craziest content they could think of.  Snow White was a bandit; Prince Charming a shepherd; Red Riding Hood was the Big Bad Wolf and True Love’s Kiss could conquer anything.

 _True Love,_ he’d said.   _That’s the most powerful magic of all, or so they say._ He’d said that, as if magic were real and it was just that simple, and then he’d looked at her with the kind of look you get in your eyes when you’ve been left alone.  The kind of look a man might have after growing up under an indenture and losing the brother who had protected him--the kind of look he might have after watching the woman he loved die while he was helpless to stop it--the kind of look that might drive a man to chase his vengeance through worlds and time and finally give himself over to a curse in the hope of finally finding his revenge.

And what a curse:  The Dark Curse, product of the darkest magic and the most malign intent, unleashed upon the world by an Evil Queen manipulated by a man known as the Dark One, and then Snow White and Prince Charming had wrapped their newborn daughter in a hand-knitted blanket trimmed with purple ribbon and hoped that someday, she would find them.

 _All of it,_ he’d said, _is because of Regina Mills and Robert Gold_.

That was when Emma left a note for her friend, promising breakfast, and went back to The Rabbit Hole.

The rear entrance was locked but the office wasn’t, and anyway Emma had come prepared for both, the tension wrench going straight in and exactly the right amount of pressure on the pins popping the back door open in a matter of seconds.  The room was exactly as they had left it, even down to Emma’s unfinished tumbler of rum sitting on the far side of Hook’s desk. This time, though, Emma sat on his side, in his chair, bending to examine the drawers.

In the third drawer down she found the locked box.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the lock on this offered more of a challenge than the back door had done, but it was still open in less than a minute, its contents spread across the desk for Emma’s examination:  a scrap of leather, embossed with a foreign sigil she didn’t recognize and the name ‘Jones’; a flask, not unlike the one she had already seen; a pen-and-ink drawing of a woman, and an accompanying picture of a young boy; a hook.  Emma’s hands fidgeted with the smallest treasure pulled from the trove--a ring on a chain--as she contemplated the curved, silver metal that would not have looked out of place in the collection on the wall in the main bar, before putting it all away and locking everything back up, exactly as she had found it.  

The ring went around her neck before Emma could ask herself why.

 _Everything you think you believe is wrong,_ he’d said.

But Emma Swan was not a believer.

 

\--

 

Granny’s at seven in the morning was another challenge.  Not just because the neighborhood’s best coffee shop and diner would naturally be bustling during the morning rush but because Emma’s head was still pounding. Almost before she sat down, Granny had sent Ruby over with a cup of steaming hot chocolate, whipped cream on top and a cinnamon stick instead of a spoon to stir it.  Ruby pulled a face at being dragged back into her old waitressing gig, then gave Emma a wink and sat down, brandishing a bear claw.

Emma closed her eyes and tried to remember why Ruby had quit working at her grandmother’s diner instead of imagining a werewolf serving a bear claw.  Something about a row between Granny and Ruby that ended up with Ruby at the bus stop, threatening to leave town, and Emma finding her and mentioning that she and Graham could use the extra help.

“You look like shit,” Ruby commented.

“Are you sure Granny didn’t just fire your ass?” Emma retorted.  “Because that is not how you speak to paying customers.”

Ruby laughed.  “I’m a people person,” she said.  “One that you pay to speak to _your_ customers.”

“Good point,” Emma said, finally offering a small smile.  “How long did you work here, anyway?”

“As long as I can remember,” Ruby said, rolling her eyes.  “Too long, that’s for sure.”

“Hey, speaking of your job,’ Emma said, “you did a good one with the door.”

“It’s barely seven and you’ve already been to the office?”

Emma shrugged.  “It was a long night,” was all she said, because that was easier than saying she’d spent the night reading fairy tales.  Emma had gone to her office after leaving The Rabbit Hole. She’d sat at Graham’s desk, with his things--added another reminder to her collection when she’d pulled the laces from his favorite working boots and tied them around her wrist to cover her tattoo.  Hook’s ring bumped up against the swan pendant around her neck that might as well have been an albatross for how much it had weighed her down in the years since Neal had stolen it for her and then bequeathed it to her, a parting gift she’d received in prison as she served the sentence he’d set her up to take.

Emma Swan did not get emotional about men and she carried the reasons why everywhere she went.

_I do like to leave an impression._

The ring was leaving an impression in her skin from where she’d wrapped her hand around it, Emma realized as she tried to focus on what Ruby was saying to her, and then the bell over the entrance rang and Mary Margaret came in, looking nervously around her before sliding into the booth.  Emma ordered her a tea by gesturing for Ruby to go get it, which got her another fake snarl before Mary Margaret said, in a voice barely above a whisper: “I broke up with David.”

“Ah,” Emma said.  She leaned in closer, wanting to offer comfort, but not totally sure how to do it.  She reached her hand out to her roommate’s in an unfamiliar gesture, then let it fall to the table when her eye caught the emerald ring Mary Margaret wore on her third finger.  

“Kathryn…” Mary Margaret said, “his wife, I mean, she got into law school.”  She paused. “In Boston.”

“So David is moving with her?”

“No,” Mary Margaret said, on the verge of tears.  “We talked about it--we agreed--to take the opportunity start over from a real place.  He was going to tell her the truth. We were going to be honest.”

Emma did not fail to notice the repeated use of the past tense.

“He didn’t tell her, did he,” Emma said, not needing to ask.  “But somehow, she found out.”

“While you were out last night on your case I was with David,” Mary Margaret said.  “And then his wife called looking for him. She thought he was on duty at the station but he didn’t answer there so she--”  Mary Margaret was wiping away tears now. “He was supposed to tell her. He told me that he did.”

“That would have been the honorable thing to do,” Emma agreed.  “But he lied to you, too.”

“And I realized,” Mary Margaret said, “that what we have, it isn’t love.  It’s something else, something destructive. We shouldn’t be together.  It's like we're cursed.”

 _Show me you feel the same, and we can be together forever_.

Ruby came back with the tea and sat down, looking between Emma and Mary Margaret before grabbing Mary Margaret in a hug.

“I always thought,” Mary Margaret said, “ that if two people were meant to be together, they find a way.  They--they find each other, no matter what. I really believed that.”

_“If you need anything--”  
_ _“You’ll find me?” Snow said, looking at him thoughtfully.  
_ _“Always,” Charming confirmed.  
_ _“I almost believe that,” Snow said._

Emma shook her head, trying to wake herself up, trying not to picture the story she’d read the night before, trying not to see the woman in white and a red-cloaked werewolf where her friends were sitting.  She took a sip of her cocoa and looked at the clock: 7:15.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” Ruby was saying, an arm still wrapped around Mary Margaret’s shoulder as the bell over the door rang again and Sheriff David Nolan walked in.

“You made a mistake with David,” Emma said.  “It happens. Hang in there. If there’s anything I can do to help, I will.”

“Thank you,” Mary Margaret said softly, wiping under her eyes, though her mascara was already a lost cause.  

So much for True Love.

But Emma still had a job to do, even if she wasn’t completely sure what it was any more.  She finished her cocoa and got up, a quick “see you at the office” to Ruby and a hand on the shoulder, which seemed like the right thing to do, for Mary Margaret.  She walked toward David and resisted the urge to hit him when she got in front of him and asked, “What happened with Hook last night?”

David’s head moved but he wasn’t looking at her.  He was almost looking through her as he said, “I’m looking,” which didn’t seem like an answer to her question.

“What the fuck, Nolan?  You really want to dick around right now?” Emma gestured impatiently at the sobbing woman behind both of them.

“I’m looking,” he repeated, and it still wasn’t an answer.

“Whatever,” Emma muttered, moving toward the way out.  David Nolan looked like a man possessed.

Or cursed.

 _Fuck literally all of that,_ Emma thought as the door closed behind her, nearly walking into someone on the sidewalk.  She sidestepped him at the last minute, turning behind her just to double-check, and he was staring at her.  The man was tall, with messy hair and wide eyes, something frantic in his gaze. He wore a cravat and a top coat as if that was a thing people did, and turned away when she caught his gaze, walking quickly in the other direction.

Emma buried her hands in her pockets, twisting her fingers in the fabric of the pocket bags, and walked to the sheriff’s station.  

 

\--

 

She should have been expecting to find him already gone, if Nolan was out and about getting coffee, but finding the cell empty was still something of a shock.  Judging by the charge sheet he had left on his desk--without locking the door, making it easy to snoop--Hook had been bailed out by a woman named Cora Hart. David had left no other notes or thoughts, at least none that Emma could see,so she walked back to the door and came face-to-face with Regina Mills, who was walking in and looking, as usual, angry.

“Seriously?”

“I should be the one asking you that,” Regina said, apparently exasperated in addition to angry.  “What game are you playing at, Miss Swan?”

“I could say the same to you,” Emma retorted. “It was you, wasn’t it, who phoned the Sheriff last night?”

Regina looked impressed in spite of herself, but did not condescend to answer.  “The way the two of you were making eyes at each other,” Regina said with a sneer, “constituted a crime.”

“We do not,” Emma objected, “‘make eyes’.”  Emma realized her mistake only when Regina snorted--it felt like an admission, of sorts, and definitely one that Regina could not be trusted with.

“I’ve come to see to him, at any rate,” Regina said expectantly.  “What have you done with him?”

Emma gestured at the empty cell with a flourish, suppressing the urge to make a mocking little bow.  “He’s gone,” she said. “Bailed out this morning by Cora Hart.”

There was a beat of silence and then Regina’s face went completely white, as if all of the blood had drained from her face at once--except for her lips, which remained so red they looked bloodstained.

“Who is she, Regina?”

“It’s not possible,” Regina whispered.

“You seem to be saying that a lot lately,” Emma said. “It never seems to be true.”

Regina’s perfectly painted lips formed a moue.  “She’s my mother,” Regina admitted.

“I thought your mother was dead,” Emma said.

“So did I,” Regina said.

 

\--

 

Hours later, but still fairly early in the morning, Emma banged on the door of The Rabbit Hole.  The front door this time, no lock picks necessary, though she reconsidered that approach when it took awhile for the door to open.  She was greeted by a petite blonde with a messy topknot and a pinned-on nametag (“Tink”) who looked singularly unimpressed when Emma asked to see Hook.

“He warned us you might coming by,” Tink said.  “We’re not meant to let you in.”

“Fine,” Emma sighed.  “Then I’m here for, like, pixie dust or whatever.”

“I’m fresh out,” Tink deadpanned, rolling her eyes as Emma pushed through.  “And I don’t think he especially wants to see you.”

In the daylight, the vintage air lent by the Edison bulbs was absent, leaving only the sense of grime.  A man, shorter than Hook and stockier with close-cropped hair, was stocking shelves and stacking glasses.  The bar-back, maybe. A black woman sang to herself as she worked on some equipment on a small stage--the song stirred something in Emma; she felt almost as if her worries could just float away, but the song was in the wrong key, leaving Emma feeling worse than she already did.  The bar-back began speaking to a short, ratty-looking man in a red cap, looking up at her as she passed by, while Lacey, she of the stilettos and t-shirt with the cascading auburn hair, was nowhere to be seen. Emma wended her way toward the office, past the restroom and the entrance to the small kitchen along the route she had taken the night before, following the faint sound of conversation she could hear leaking into the hallway.

“--matters grew complicated,” Hook’s voice stopped Emma in her tracks, pausing by the door of the restroom where she could eavesdrop shamelessly.  “Honestly, the details of the affair are a bit of a bore.”

“I doubt that,” a woman’s voice said.  “I would imagine running off with the Swan girl--the Savior, Hook--and alerting my daughter would be anything but a bore.  And while I would love to know why you thought either of those things was a good idea, you know that it’s an unacceptable betrayal.”

“Come off it,” Hook snapped.  “Our agreement--”

“I’ve crossed through too many worlds to be brought short on the brink of success,” the woman cut him off.  “I don’t have time for whatever game you think you’re playing.”

“You think that I don’t understand what the stakes are here?”

“Your actions would certainly suggest otherwise.”

“Rest assured,” Hook said, “it won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t,” the woman agreed.  “You chose her. Now you can face the consequences of that decision.”

Emma ducked into the restroom and only just got the door shut when she heard someone, presumably Cora Hart, walk by.  She counted ten and added another ten just to make sure before stepping back into the hallway and into Hook’s office.

He shirt, the same one from last night, was wrinkled and untucked, though he had discarded his waistcoat and the sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, exposing the brace on his left wrist and a flash of ink that must have been a tattoo on his right.  His hair had gone from artfully mussed to full-on mess and he needed to trim his beard back. Hook was pouring himself a drink--the rum bottle again--and drank it off quickly before pouring another.

He saw Emma when he was lifting the glass for round two; Emma watched his expression darken into something twisted and hurt.  He put the glass down, turned, bent, and pulled out another glass, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her as he poured a third shot and pushed it to the other side of his desk.

“I generally prefer not to drink my breakfast,” Emma protested, but her voice was soft and the objection was weak.

“Drink with me, Swan,” Hook said, his eyes flashing blue murder, “or get the hell out.”  His mouth twitched upward in a harsh facsimile of his usual smile. “I’m recovering from a trauma, don’t you know.  In all the times I’ve been condemned to the brig, I’ve never before been force-fed bologna.”

“You do look like shit,” Emma acknowledged, raising her glass in a toast.

“Whereas you, darling,” Hook said, “look stunning.”  He drank the rum and Emma flinched, glad the glass in her hands kept her from reaching self-consciously for her flattened curls or rubbing under her eye for stray liner.  The tone of his voice was deadly and Emma had never before heard an endearment sound so much like an epithet. Emma moved the glass to her lips, grateful for the burn of the liquor down her throat, grateful for the reminder that she had been treating their acquaintance--connection--like more than it was.  

There was no future here; not a happy one, at any rate, not with Hook or Jones or whatever-the-fuck his name was.

“Fuck you, Jones,” Emma said, and cursed herself when his eyes flickered.

“‘Killian’ will do,” he said.  “I see you had a busy night after leaving me to the tender mercies of your constabulary.  There I was, hoping you might try something new and trust me, and you, Swan, couldn’t handle it.”  That verbal tic of his was back in full force as he landed hard on the ‘t.’

“You would have done the same,” Emma said.   _Look out for yourself and never get hurt_.

“Actually, princess, I believe in good form. I didn’t have to bring you there at all, much less hurt my own cause to do so.”

“Then why?” Emma burst out.  “Why did you?”

He didn’t answer.  He didn’t need to--Emma already knew the answer.

“It was a mistake,” Emma began, but he didn’t let her say anything else.

“Is that what you want to call it?” He snorted, and reached yet again to pour from the rum bottle.

“Well, I tried to call it ‘Al,’” Emma said, starting to feel her temper rise.  “But it would only answer to ‘mistake’.”

“Think, Swan,” Jones said.  “You’ve obviously figured some things out.  Think about every evil act attributed to me, every sin that has been laid at my door.”  His voice was quietly terrifying. “Recite to yourself, if you will, my catalogue of cruelties and consider if you really want to provoke me right now.”

“Like killing Cora Mills?”  Emma said. “Or is it Cora Hart?  Either way, she seemed to be in pretty good shape for a dead woman.”

“A busy night, indeed,” Jones murmured.  Shot number three disappeared and the silence extended as she watched him do it.

“I came to apologize,” Emma said sharply, “and to give you this.”  She reached for the chain around her neck and started to pull it off, but at the stricken look that flashed across his face, put her glass on the desk and lifted it with both hands.  The chain hung down from her wrist, the ring cradled in her palm.

“Well done, Swan,” Jones said.  “Wouldn’t you make one hell of a pirate?”  His voice was now completely emotionless, which was somehow worse than the undercurrent of malice that had been there a moment ago. “Perhaps you’re the one who should have been locked up.”

Emma dropped the ring into his outstretched hand.  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“It was my brother’s,” he said, his voice still flat; he didn't even bat an eyelash at her confession.  “Did you figure that out, princess? Dead brother, dead lover, and a crusade for vengeance that carried me for nearly three hundred years?”

Emma shook her head, in denial or disbelief--she wasn’t sure.  

 _He's older than he looks_. 

"Please don't call me that," she said.  That was what she couldn't handle--the word, spoken like a title.  Like a fact.

Emma Swan was  _not_ a believer.

“I came here by choice, Swan; I am one of the few who did, though I was played just as surely as any of the poor sods who were brought here against their will.  Only I was given a gift: To wake up, for twenty-eight years, and not dread the day before it began. To live the same day, over and over, and to welcome it, because I felt like someone alive.  Have you any notion of what that might feel like, princess?”

Emma stayed silent, refusing to give him an answer when he clearly didn’t want one--refusing to give him an answer when he already had one.

“And then one day to realize that all of it was magical nonsense, based on a lie--that I had been living in a dream.  A life, and friends, and lovers, and none of it was real.”

“I don’t understand,” Emma said.  When she looked into his eyes, she saw all of the despair of a lost little boy who had never mattered, and who believed he never would.  She did not hold his gaze. She already had a mirror. And she was not prepared for how quickly Hook--Jones--closed the gap between them.

“You’re a liar,” he said.

“Captain Hook is calling me a liar,” Emma said, feeling her temper rise again.  “What happened to ‘the mystique is part of my charm’?”

“No, princess,” he said.  “Killian Jones is calling you a liar.  I’m done with trickery.” He took another step forward, crowding her personal space.  “My constant pursuit of revenge--for the death of the crocodile--left my life empty. That’s the thing about revenge, you see:  it’s an end, not a beginning. But your arrival in our little corner of this world was enough to trigger the protection spell I had traveled under; the arrival of the Savior, come to break the curse, and suddenly I remembered all that had come before.”

“I’m no Savior,” Emma said. Not a princess, and definitely not a Savior.  She was just a woman trying to figure out what had happened to her partner:  no more, no less.

“Don’t misunderstand me, my dear,” Hook said.  “Your arrival reminded me of my purpose, but I cared not one whit whether this curse ever broke. And then--”

Emma drew a deep breath.  

“You,” he said.  “I get to you.  You find yourself drawn to me.  You think about me even when you do not wish to, and I’d wager you’ve even dreamt about me.”  He was so close to her, Emma could almost grab his lapels and make the space between them nonexistent.  Hook’s eyes flashed, so fucking blue, as he said: “And right now, you want to kiss me. So why didn’t you come for me last night?  Why did you turn on me?”

“I don’t know,” Emma said.

“Liar,” he breathed, his lips just over hers.  “I should thank you, Swan, for reminding me what I’m all about.  And if you want to pretend that all of this isn’t happening, that’s fine.  I don’t dance, anyway.”

 _Liar_ , Emma thought, watching him take one step backward and then another.  He settled his weight on the desk, one leg crossed over the other, his arms folded across his chest.

“Now,” Hook said, his expression flipping to one of complete disinterest.  “If you’re going to apologize, don’t be afraid to, you know, really get into it.”

“Fuck you, Jones,” she said again.

“The time for that is done, princess,” he said, every syllable dripping with disdain and disappointment.  “Just as I have done with you.”

 


End file.
